


If Fate did exist

by AgapantoBlu



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: F/M, M/M, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 01:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6684202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgapantoBlu/pseuds/AgapantoBlu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midorima is fine. He doesn't tape his hands, doesn't follow Oha Asa, doesn't bring lucky items around, but he's fine. He's a doctor, he's got a good car, he's got friends who won't leave him alone no matter what, so he's fine.</p><p>He's fine. He didn't count the days since eight years ago, he didn't lock himself away from any possible love relationship and he didn't ban the name "Takao Kazunari" from even his own mind.</p><p>He's fine until a basketball cross his car's path and the past hit him like a brick to the head.</p><p>Also, do not evoke Kise. Ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Fate did exist

**Author's Note:**

> This story is OLD. Like, very old. It's so long (past the 10000 words) that I didn't have the time to translate it 'till when fever hit me this weekend -.-
> 
> I changed it a bit, correct some things, but the style is still pretty different from my actual one, considering it was written years ago ^^"
> 
> Also, yeah, MidoTaka. I was feeling like a change.

 

**If Fate did exist**

 

“Midorima-sensei, the check up results.”

When the high and exaggeratedly honey voice of the red-haired nurse at the reception prolongued the ‘i’ in his surname, Shintarou seriously considered killing her. He couldn’t stand that pushing and stupid girl trying to buy herself a ring by bending forward enough to let her breasts almost fall out of her bra every time he passed nearby.

He adjusted the glasses on his nose, came back to the reception almost walking backward and rudely grabbed the mustard-coloured folder and then left muttering something behind comprehension – that surely wasn’t a ‘thank you’ –.

Why couldn’t that woman leave him be?! He had nothing to do with feelings since a very long time and he was sure he had make it clear with that other nurse, the black-haired one that had asked him out.

He heavily sighed while pushing the glass doors of the hospital he was working at and reached for the car park while searching his pockets for his keys, wondering how could he lose them in such a little space.

When he found them, he pressed the button and his car, a black convertible one, glinted once with a gentle ‘bip’, as if greeting him.

Despite his young age, Midorima had cleared his path quickly, finished University in half the time he should have and reached the position of ICU responsible in the public contest. And yet he lived in a hole of apartment just because it was closer to the hospital – and were more the nights he spent in his office with barely three or four years of sleep than the one he managed to come back home –, still has the same mobile he used in high school but that know was a bit ruined, he never hanged out, didn’t smoke nor drink and never bought expensive items. That car was his only whimper in eight years since he finished high school and he took it more because of necessity: it was true an emergency could have happened anytime, but most of all sometimes he needed to take a break from himself, feel the steering wheel in his hands and concentrate on driving ‘til losing conscience of his own person and become one with road and senses.

If he still were the adolescent of once upon a time, he would have simply taken the basketball in his hands and scored a three after the other ceaselessly since when his muscles would refuse to move again, but that game was now forbidden to him. Every time he touched the ball, every time he head the hiss of the net in the basket and every time he saw the white lines under his feet, nausea took him and his mind slapped him with the same memory he usually tried to avoid by driving.

Shintarou shook his head a bit as soon as he realized the direction of his thoughts and hurried up in unlocking the car and get on the driver seat, throwing his bag and the folder on the passenger one as if someone were chasing after him. Only when he had turned the car on and ensured both his hands on the steering wheel he allowed himself a sigh. He masterfully exited the hospital park. Driving was something that always worried him, he had seemed enough wounded by car accident to not be able to underestimate that action anymore and thus it was the thing he rather do to escape his own past.

As he was halfway to his house, his car signalled him an incoming call and he answered it by clicking the button beside the radio.

“ _Midorimacchi!_ ” exclaimed Kise’s cheerful voice, “ _How a-_ ”

He hang up before the other could add anything.

‘Ryouta means troubles’ was a link he had learn to make far too well.

Since the end of high school, Aomine and Kagami had moved to America and were sharing an apartament as roommates even if not really happily and playing for two good – and different, luckily – teams in the NBA championship; Akashi took over all the companies in his family, took care of them and then started studying psychology – he would have taken the last exam a month later – and thus Midorima knew that even just trying to call him when he was so under-pressure meant risking his life; ultimately, Murasakibara had a little minimarket beside his parents’ house. The blond model, instead, had moved back to Tokyo around five years before for his acting job and had been determined in keeping contacts with him and the only other guy who had remained in the city, namely…

The car ringed of another calling.

“Kuroko.” he growled admonishing while accepting the call, “Why do you keep on getting involved with Kise, nanodayo?”

“ _Because he knows where I live, Midorima-kun. He keeps on showing up at my door uninvited and you know I can’t abandon animals._ ”

The both of them ignored the offended ‘So mean!’ in the background.

“What does he want this time?” the doctor asked striving not to hung up in the face of the other too.

In the years after high school, Kuroko had always been there for him through his dark moments; they had even been roommates during the years of university, when the phantom was studying pedagogy to become a kindergarten teacher and he was spending his days on the books trying to get his degree soon. Tetsuya had practically taken care of him every time he got into a simil-coma state after the exams, dragged him out to prevent him from turning the same shade of his papers and sometimes made him laugh, teaching him that he should have gone on despite everything. He would have never admit it, but the phantom turned out to be a great friend for him.

“ _Karaoke._ ” Kuroko only said and even in his apathetic voice could be heard a low and grave shade.

Midorima hang up.

Karaoke?! Never!

 

 

“Why?!” he only asked, glaring at Kuroko from the height of those twenty centimetres dividing them, as soon as the other opened the door.

“Because otherwise I’ll give Kise-kun the keys for your apartment and I’d dare to have you noticing that it would be extremely convenient for me since he’ll show up there more than here.” the phantom answered back taking his jacket from beside the entrance and getting out.

Immediately after him, the blond Kise jumped out of the house trying to hug the doctor by surprise, but the man lifted his bag – brought only to be used as a weapon against the model – and let the other smash his face against it.

He sighed and adjusted the glasses on his nose. It would’ve been a long night.

 

 

Shintarou wasn’t used to drink. Thus, he had no idea as to why he had asked for a beer or why his chin was now resting on the counter as he played with the five empty glasses before his face. He had managed to escape karaoke with Kuroko’s sustain, but Kise had dragged them in a bar calling them meanies.

He ran his finger on the edge of a glass, trying to remember more.

Oh, right. Half way to the local they had met a guy. A guy with shoulder-long black hair and grey eyes. He had almost died on the spot and realized he was going to run to the stranger only when he had felt the phantom’s firm hand grabbing his wrist. That apathetic voice had been clear: “It’s not him, Midorima-kun.” And Shintarou had felt like an idiot. And had ordered a beer. And a second. A third. Kise had told him he shouldn’t have exhaggerated. And he had ordered two more.

He wasn’t wasted, he was still lucid enough to understand what was happening around him, but he was even ‘disinhibited’ enough to tell exactly what passed in his mind without caring about his usual mask.

“Kuroko, why haven’t we slept together already?”

Kise spat the beer he was drinking when he heard that question and he turned to his friend, sitting between him and Tetsuya who was now staring at the doctor.

“Or Kise.” Midorima kept on fixing his own glasses, “Why haven’t I ever slept with Kise?” Then he thought better. “Oh, right, because he’s annoying. But you’re not, not that much, so why haven’t I slept with you already, Kuroko?”

“Uhm, where does this question come from, Midorimacchi?” asked Kise, half embarrassed and half amazed.

“Do you it has been the Teiko?” the other kept on ignoring him, “I mean, six players out of six got out of that school gay, it can’t be a coincidence. Maybe it’s because of the training: they forced us to always be together without giving us time to date girls so maybe our brains concluded that going for males was the only choice we had to satisfy our lowest instincts.”

Kuroko and Kise shared a look from above their friend’s back, who was still laying on the counter.

“Midorima-kun,” the first asked as the second took abother sip of beet, “I dare, for professional reasons, to ask: when was the last time you had a sexual intercourse?”

For the second time, Kise spat his beer.

“Kurokocchi, somehow your politeness makes it all worse…” he commented, cleaning himself with an handkerchief, but the other two ignored him.

“What does, professionally speaking, my sexual life have to do with a kindergarten teacher?” Shintarou asked, surprised?

Kuroko barely smiled.

“I have to take care of my kids.”

Kise laghed and Midorima let out a low ‘Go die’, but smiled a bit too.

 

 

Next morning, Midorima had a little migraine and the feeling that his life would have been far easier if he had cut out of it that same Kise who had woken him up at six in the morning with the message: “ _Midorimacchi owes to me a beer, to Kurokocchi a big present and to himself a good fuck._ ”

He sighed for the umpteenth time that day, when finally he managed to get into his study closing the red-haired nurse out. He fixed the glasses on his nose, sat on his chair, behind his desk, and thought about letting her meet his model friend: if only Kise were heterosexual, he would have killed two birds with a single stone – and, oh, how charming the idea actually sounded in the metaphor –, but sadly the blond man had been able to prove himself useless once more.

He turned his pc on and it, first thing, showed him a bright note filled with smiles, emojis, faces and little pictures of basketballs. A lightening writing said: Midorima, the reunion of the Generation of Miracles is in a week, don’t forget it!

“Kise, I’ll kill you.” he growled to himself as he erased the meeting from his agenda with violent clicks. How did that damn idiot reach his computer?!

As he deleted the post, he discovered Ryouta had programmed other fifteens in the days that were left before the appointment, making sure to place them in different times to be certain he’d have seen at least one.

He was halfway with his destruction when the nurse appeared on the door asking if he wanted some coffee. He ignored and kept on deleting that horrified invites as if doing that he could erase from the planet even their creator.

 

 

After erasing all the notes and finishing his turn, as he exited the hospital fixing the glasses on his nose, Shintarou decided that Ryouta had been right about one and only one thing in his whole life: Midorima owed himself a good fuck.

He hadn’t answered Kuroko, the night before, because it would have been too humiliating to admit that his last wild night had been still in his high school times, eight years ago. The teal-haired guy used to tell him he wasn’t good in letting the past behind and he was probably right, but Shintarou was determined to change that. He had taken the next day off so he would allowed himself some freedom that night.

He grabbed his phone to call Tetsuya, but then he thought better. He wanted a night for himself alone. Thus, he simply sent a text to warn the other about his decision to put an end to his days as a recluse and then he got in the car and drove without stop to the bar where he had naively let Kise drag him at his last birthday. The evening had ended in a disaster when he had thought to see someone he knew on the other side of the counter and had consequently dragged everybody out in a hurry. Kuroko had looked at him blankly, but thankfully said nothing. Now Midorima felt ready to face all of his ghosts and he would have done so exactly in front of the carbon-copy of his ex.

 

 

_“Takao!” he roared as soon as he turned to the entrance of the gym and recognized the frame in the rectangle of the opened door, “You’re late!”_

_He was ready for any mocking remark from his friend, so he was readying himself to hit him, but Kazunari said nothing. He entered the gym silent as he had never been, not even when asleep – he sleep-talked, Midorima had sadly noted more than once during summer camps –, and thus the shooting guard felt an unpleasant shiver running down his spine._

_Instinctively, he tightened his grip on his lucky item of the day, an empty feeding bottle for children._

_“Shin-chan…” Takao’s voice was low and trembling, his eyes widened on nothingness even when he stood in front of the other, “I…I made a mess…”_

_Shintarou hesitated. He tried to outstretch his arms toward his boyfriend’s shoulders but the other immediately stepped back._

_“Don’t… Don’t do that, Shin-chan…” he even murmured, “It’s already difficult as it is… Shintarou.”_  
  
Midorima closed his eyes and slammed his forehead against the steering wheel. It was ten minutes already that he was there, in his car, in front of the bar, with the result that it was now a quarter past seven and he was hungry and ashamed. He really couldn’t jump into that place and risk to be overwhelmed by a memory he could barely manage in the dark inside of that car.

He waited some more. It became half past seven. He called himself an idiot and started the car again. He reversed the car and had just gotten back into the road when he saw a well-known ball flashing in front of his car. He hit the breaks so fast, got down and ran to the space between two parked cars where the ball had come out. Because if the toy had passed there, then ninety-nine out of a hundred…

A kid popped out of the little space barely a second before Midorima reached him and the doctor had to turn and bend toward the middle of the road to grab the child with an arm around his waist and stop him before, chasing his ball, he jumped in the other lane. A grey car coming from the other direction hit the ball dead on, making it bounce upward and stuck in the branches of one of the trees planted in the sidewalk.

Shintarou stared at the scene for a moment, shocked and panting, before realizing for real the weight of the little body in his arms.

The child immediately started trembling and after a moment hid his face on the doctor’s shoulder and begun sobbing desperately even before Midorima could take a look at him to see if he was okay and scold him for his recklessness. In the end, though, he decided to let go and simply accommodated him better in his arms and laid a hand on his short black hair to calm him down.

“It’s all right…” he found himself saying, motioning with his head to the man who had ran under the ball and who had immediately stopped and climbed down his car to check on what happened.

The doctor crossed the road, laid the kid on the sidewalk, almost under the branch that now held the ball in hostage, and ordered him to stay there as he went back to his car. As he turned the engine on and parked on the side of the rode, Midorima realized his heart was still racing. A flash of what could have happened hit him and he ran a hand on his face sighing heavily. When he got out of the car and crossed the road to go back to the kid, inside him had reborn the determination to scold him for his stupidity, but he was once more stopped. 

The kid had his back turned to him and was keeping his head so bent upward that it could have probably made the whole body fall backward. Midorima approached him and noticed that the child couldn’t be more than eight, had two beautiful bright green eyes and wasn’t crying anymore. He was sniffing and clenching the fists he sometimes ran on his face, but was not sobbing nor saying anything and simply stared at his treasure, now out of his reach.

“You should be happy,” Shintarou said, rough, fixing the glasses on his nose, “it could be you on that branch, now.”

He highly doubted that, but scaring the kid a bit maybe would have ensured that he wouldn’t do anything similar ever again.

“It was my father’s.” the child retorted instead, apparently without even listening to his saviour’s words.

Midorima was annoyed for that, but then lifted his eyes on the basketball. He shouldn’t have done it and he knew it, but in the end the player in him won over the responsible adult and outstretched an arm up and jumped as he would have to shoot a three-pointer against Kagami. For normal people it would have been quite the height, but he had an athletic body that he still kept in shape even now so he easily grabbed the ball and fell down gracefully together with some green leaf, then he turned to the kid who was now staring at him with eyes wide open and a bright hopeful smile on his lips.

Shintarou’s plan had been to threaten not to give it back, but he didn’t have to heart to do so and simply gave it back.

“Be more careful, next time.” he admonished anyway, fixing the glasses on his nose with a push of his index, “If the ball ends up on the road, let it go. Never run after it.”

The kid held his basketball harder against his chest and pouted.

“Bit it was my father’s.” he repeated, as if it was enough to justify everything.

Shintarou rolled his eyes, but bent forward with his hands on his knees.

“Yes, but you’re your father’s too, aren’t you?” he tried, feeling stupid just attempting to follow the kid’s logic, “What do you think is more important to him, you or the ball?”

“I am!” the kid immediately exclaimed, clearly offended by the comparison, and Midorima couldn’t help but smile. “Good, then be careful.” And he said it, he ruffled his hair because the child was nice. Then he decided to go back to the ground. “Speaking of which, where is your father?” he asked, looking around in surprise realizing nobody had noticed the child’s stunt. 

If he really couldn’t bring himself to scold the kid, then Shintarou was more than dead set into shouting the brain out of the father’s ears.

The kid, with absolute innocence, turned and pointed at the bar Midorima was going to go to.

“Working.” He said, then he laid a dreamy gaze on the ball in his hands, “If he can finish early, he’ll come play with me.”

Shintarou hesitated. A child shouldn’t have had such melancholic eyes. A sigh escaped his lips as he ruffled the brat’s pitchy black strands.

He was going to say something, not even him was sure what, when an hysterical voice made him lift his eyes on the other side of the road, on the backstreet that opened on the back door of the bar.

“What does it mean you lost sight of him?!”

A man with black hair, long and tied in a short ponytail behind his head, was giving his back to the road to face another man, brown-haired and with a lazy expression as he shrugged.

“Oh oh.” the kid muttered and Midorima almost jerked when he grabbed his hand and hid behind his leg, “I promised dad not to play near the street.”

“But you did it, didn’t you?” the doctor guessed, just to sigh under the begging look he was met with. Feeling dragged into something he had no business with, Shintarou fixed the glasses on his nose, scoped the kid up in his arms and looked carefully to both the sides of the street before crossing it, then he approached the two discussing men. The black-haired one, probably the famous ‘dad’, seemed honestly hysterical and was running a hand in his hair as he kept on insulting the other as eyes kept on running to the bar door, probably not knowing what to do.

“Excuse me.” Midorima finally intervened. The brown-haired man was the first to see him coming and notice the kid in his arms, and he relaxed his shoulders. Judging from the hand the other man had in a fist on his shirt, he had probably just envisioned a bad future. “I think the kid here is yours.” the doctor went on, unsure as to how to explain that the child had almost been run over.

The black-haired man turned. His face was carved, the expression so much more serious, the hair longer, but those grey-blue eyes were still the same, even if somehow empty of the cheerfulness that had made him famous in high school.

“Shin…tarou?” he murmured, shocked.

And he answered, because what else could he do?

“…T-Takao?”

Midorima regretted saying those words as soon as they left his mouth. Because they burned him, the turned him into ashes like nothing else could have done, shredded him to pieces and left him on the ground like cinder waiting for some wind to breath him away from his dying fireplace. He had avoided to pronounce that name carefully for the whole eight years following their break up and now he had let it out as if it was nothing, like a drug-addicted who hadn’t touched anything in years and then got himself high on a dose without thinking as soon as he found a syringe in his hand. All the training to forget him, the miles to run away from the memories, the evenings with Kuroko and Kise to convince himself that he could do it alone, everything had been useless, only wasted time. 

“Dad!”

Shintarou jerked hearing the child’s voice and put him down hurriedly, almost burned. He looked at him running toward Kazunari, who knelt to let his son wrap his arms around his neck and hold him close, muttering something in a low voice. He looked at them together and reality hit him in the stomach like a punch, like the memory invading his mind.  
  
_“Shin-c…tarou. Shintarou, I…am pregnant. No, wait, no, I’m not. A girl is pregnant. I mean, she’s pregnant of me. Well, he’s been born tonight. She just told me, I went to see him. Shintarou, I…I cannot turn my back and leave like this. I can’t. I’m sorry.”_  
  
“Dad, that old man saved me! He took back by ball!”

Midorima was ripped awake from him past by the little finger pointed at him. Takao-chan was pointing him out to his father with a big smile on his lips.

“Is that so?” Takao-san asked, straightening up with his son in his arms and daring to look at his ex, but then he seemed to really realize the kid’s words and his expression turned terrified, “What happened?!”

Shintarou had never managed to imagine Kazunari as a father, for as much as he had tried to after the news, but in that moment he knew something: he would have freaked out.

 

  
Midorima knew there was something deeply wrong in the way he was sitting rigidly on a stool at the bar counter, staring at Takao-chan carefully drawing a basketball on a tree – the crayon kept in an impossible way and his tongue darting out of a corner of his mouth, his whole body bent on the paper as if trying to get inside it – and waiting for the other Takao to be done serving some clients to go back to them. Not that he wasn’t grateful for the time ‘alone’: he wasn’t mentally ready to deal with Kazunari, not yet, not to mention the other was still furious with his colleague for missing his child, with the kid for almost getting himself injured or worse and with himself for not being the one who had been there to prevent the disaster from happening. Neither of them was basically in the mood to reminisce.

Shintatou wondered why he had accepted to get in and have a seat, why he had fallen under Kazunari’s request to wait and talk and most of all why fate had taken to hate him so much, slamming him into such a situation.

Was it because he had stopped following Oha Asa? He had given up on it and its stupid lucky items the night Takao had broken up with him to become a good father and he had realized his lucky item for the day was a fucking feeding bottle. The following day he had smashed his alarm against the floor when it turned on the morning horoscope.

He shook his head, that couldn’t be it, so what? Then he realized. The place where he had tried to go, the one he was in right at the moment, was a bar Kise had told him about. Damn, he should have expected for everything that came from the model to turn into a disaster, it was obvious!

He had just finished promising himself he would have killed the blond man when Takao the father appeared behind the counter with a sad expression.

“Sorry.” he said, then he lowered his eyes on his son and smiled at him brightly, “Hey, scamp, go to the kitchen to finish your drawing. Sanae is going to give you dinner, okay?”

The kid smiled and nodded before sprinting out, filled with energies.

Midorima stared at his watch. It was already half past eight.

“Isn’t it a bit late for him to eat?” he asked, a bit uncertain because he had never been much of an expert of kids.

Takao sighed.

“I’m doing what I can.” he simply said, maybe a bit defensive, and Midorima hurried up in nodding.

“Obviously.” he conceded, but then he didn’t know what to add and stood silent.

Surprisingly, Takao didn’t seem chattier than him, the opposite. He moved his eyes on things, cleaned glasses, organized pieces of fruits and spoons, everything not to meet his gaze. And Shintarou was scared, because Kazunari like this…he had never seen it.

He didn’t know what to do, so he faked nothingness and outstretched a hand to one of the cups on the counter. He took something without realizing and was surprised when biting he realized he had picked up a French bean. He ate it anyway, pretending not to see Takao’s surprised gaze, and ignored the plastic sound against his teeth.

“You here for a one-night-stand, Shintarou? Wouldn’t have imagined…”

Midorima almost chocked on the bean and started coughing, forcing Takao to hit him on the back and hastily giving him a glass of water. When he recovered his voice, he stared at the other in shock.

The man blinked a couple of times, confused, but then pointed at the cup.

“The unofficial rule of the place is that eating this means pointing to the other clients that you’re free and looking for company…” he explained, only to start laughing when Midorima turned red in embarrassment, “Oh, gosh, you’re still the same!”

The doctor thought about answering “You’re not” but held back. He didn’t want to act childish, it had been so long since the last time they met and besides the circumstances he didn’t want to spoil the moment.

So what came out of his lips was a simple “How are you?” as his fingers, hidden, typed on phone a dry ‘You’re dead’ and sent it to Kise Ryouta.

Kazunari shrugged, but his eyes lowered on the glass he was cleaning.

“I’m not complaining.”

“It didn’t look like that to me as you were on the verge of killing your friend.” Midorima pointed out before gesturing with his head to the man cleaning the tables, “Who’s that?”

“Besides an idiot?” Takao asked, still angry, but then sighed before answering, “Nobody in particular. He’s always on my same turns and since truthfully I couldn’t bring the kid here, I cover his part and he keeps an eye out on my child for me. Theoretically.”

Midorima frowned.

“You do his share of job and he gets paid?” he asked, quite annoyed.

Takao shrugged.

“I should pay someone to keep the kid anyway, so…” he leave the sentence hanging, but Midorima wasn’t satisfied of the answer.

Despite the mere idea of hearing about it was burning him from the inside, he forced himself to ask.

“What about his mother? Where is she?” He didn’t know the name of the girl, never known and never wanted to. He had burned down all the bridges with Takao after the other’s choice: it wasn’t out of cruelty, but simply because that way it would have been easier for everybody to go on and start anew. That he didn’t at all, was another matter.

Kazunari stole a look at the kitchen door before sighing.

“Six months ago I went to Hokkaido for a job.” he explained, “I should have staid there four weeks but at the third one she…stopped answering my calls. I used to call her once per day to talk with the kid, but suddenly stop, no more news. I thought a day could happen, but then it became two days, three and at the fourth I just came back. I found out she had packed her things and left, leaving our kid alone in the house, and the social workers had come and taken him, tried to call me but didn’t find any way to. They had thought I left too and left our son with our neighbours, the one who called to report the minor abandonment, and they had asked to adopt him.”

Midorima was…shocked. That…being had take Takao away from him and then dared to abandon both him and the child?! What?!

“I knew she was seeing someone else, I told her it wasn’t a problem as long as she was careful not to let the kid notice, but clearly she preferred leaving with him.” Kazunari concluded, shrugging.

“Takao.” Midorima’s voice was deadly serious, like when in high school he was on the verge of hitting, and the ex point guard stepped back instinctively, “Shut your mouth before I lose my temper definitely.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Takao hurried up to say, giggling, but before he could add anything a big woman appeared from the kitchen.

“Kazunari!” she called in a deep voice, “The brat fell asleep. Hurried up and take him before they turn the music on and wake him up again.”

“Coming, Sanae!” Takao assured waving a hand at her and Midorima, eyes on the door the woman came out and disappeared into, imagined the kid and realized he didn’t know one thing.

“What’s his name?” he asked, not moving his eyes from that stop because he really didn’t have the strength to look at Takao while hearing his son’s name.

The other didn’t answer and the doctor thought he hadn’t been heard.

“Shin-chan…”

Midorima turned suddenly when he heard Kazunari’s voice call his nickname – oh, how long had it been?! – in such a low and desperate voice it didn’t even seem his, but the other lowered his eyes and refused to meet his.

“What?” Shintarou tried to ask, confused, but Takao laughed a bit and shook his head.

After a while, he lifted his eyes on the counter Midorima was leaning on and pointed at his fingers.

“You’re not taping them anymore?” he asked.

Shintarou strived to resist the temptation to hide them in his pockets.

“I’m not playing anymore so there’s no need to.” he explained, shrugging, “Not to mention, I’m always working. If every time I were to waste time taping and un-taping them, I would lose a patient every two.”

Takao laughed bitterly at the joke but nodded.

“I see.” he turned his head to a side, “What about Oha Asa? No lucky item today?”

“That’s just children nonsense.” Midorima retorted, maybe a bit harshly, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to tell Takao it was his fault he had stopped believing in horoscopes, in taping his fingers, in luck. Because if Fate really did exist, Kazunari and he would have been together without a stupid fuck from months before they became official ruining everything.

Takao widened his eyes as he heard the other talking that way of his precious Oha Asa, but didn’t dare to comment and simply muttered a low ‘I see’.

Shintarou, on his part, realized he had exaggerated and fixed the glasses on his nose.

“What about the social workers?” he asked, “Did they gave you the kid back?”

Kazunari hesitated.

“We’re working on that. They’ll keep an eye out on me for a bit more.” he admitted, but then, maybe involuntarily, his voice became sharper, colder, “Our ex-neighbours keep on saying I’ve never been a good parent, that I’ll end up ruining my son’s life and that he would be better off with them.”

For some reason he had no intention to pursue, Midorima doubted the truth in those words. Kazunari had dropped out of school to follow that kid, surely he wasn’t the best parent in the world and he could only dream at night about financial stability, but Shintarou was sure he loved his son deeply.

“It will be okay.” he found himself saying, sighing and getting up from the stool because it was all becoming too… heavy… for him to stand it. “I have to go.”

Takao stared at him turning and moving to leave.

“Bye, Shintarou.” he shouted from behind.

Midorima answered with a wave of his hand, without turning, and got out of the bar. He had barely reached his car when his phone rang. He chose to answer before he started driving, so he brought the device to his hear without reading the I.D.

“You’re not doing what we think we’re doing, are you, Midorimacchi?!” Kise’s voice was interrupted from a weird background sound, like a fight, and the surprised prevented Shintarou from hanging up.

“What happened?!” he asked when the noise was finished.

“Don’t listen to Kise-kun, Midorima-kun.” Tetsuya’s voice was calm, but in the background one could still hear the model’s whining, “Could we know where you are and what is happening?”

“Why should you care?” he answered back, suspicious.

“Because you told me you had an interesting night ahead of you and shortly after you sent Kise-kun a death threat. We’re a little worried.”

Midorima frowned.

“Just for the sake of knowledge,” he dared, ignoring the voice in his head reminding him that the less he knew the better he was, “what are you thinking I’m doing?”

“You don’t want to know that.” the phantom answered, “Where are you now? Do you need help?”

Shintarou sighed, mentally exhausted, before starting searching his pockets and shaking his head.

“No, no problem, I’m just going back home.”

“… Midorima-kun, did something happen? The night went bad?”

The doctor had expected to be exposed, but he couldn’t answer anyway.

“Let’s just say I don’t want to…” he stopped. He checked his pockets better. He checked again and again and again, ignoring Tetsuya’s calls from the other end of the line. In the end, he cursed. “I forgot the keys of the car in the bar, they must have fallen when I sat down.”

“It only matters that you didn’t lose them. If you need a hand, you can call us anytime.” Tetsuya commented, seraphic as always.

Shintarou ended the call rapidly and went back in a hurry. He must be fast so he didn’t waste time to contemplate something he had barely tasted and suddenly lost when he was young and that he would never have in the future.

He was in such a hurry he crossed the local in a moment, just to reach the counter in time to see Takao consoling his son, crying with his drawing in hands.

“Please, don’t be like this…” he was murmuring, “Don’t cry, Shin-chan…”

 

 

“Allow me to summarize. Casually, yesterday night you chose to get yourself a crazy night in a gay bar, but when you got there you tried to back off. Casually, you saved a kid who was going to be run over by a car and who turned out to be the son of Takao-kun, who, casually, works right in the local you were going to go to. You talked, he told you the girl he had broken up with you for disappeared into nothingness and you tried to left but realized that, casually, you had forgotten your keys inside, so you went back and, casually, found out your ex named his son with the nick he used to call you.”

Midorima groaned in hearing the report of his evening in Tetsuya’s monotone voice, especially because despite the lack of emotions he could feel some heavy sarcasm on the continuous ‘casually’ used by the phantom.

They were at Kuroko’s place. He was lying on the couch face down, his glasses abandoned in a hand, while Kise was sitting all curled up on an armchair and staring at his with a shocked expression. And the host was sitting leg crossed on the floor in front of his face.

“What I don’t understand is:” the phantom continued, “how did it happen that today you called Takao-kun and offered to keep the kid as he works?”

Midorima groaned again.

“Casually?” he muttered, offended, but not even Kise laughed.

“Midorimacchi,” he said instead, with a worried voice, “I know I shouldn’t meddle, but I don’t want you to get hurt…”

Kuroko nodded.

“You don’t owe him, Midorima-kun.” he said, serious, “If it hurts you, don’t have to feel like you have to do this.”

The doctor turned on his back.

“Shin” he said, feeling weird in saying out loud that name that has always been his but referring to someone else, “had drawn me jumping to take the ball back for him. He wanted to give it to me, but when he woke up I had already left and he started crying.”

Kuroko and Kise exchanged a look, before the latter sighed.

“Midorimacchi, you’re in over your head here.” he declared.

Tetsuya said nothing, but the way he nodded was far too solemn for Shintarou’s liking.

 

 

Embarrassment.

That was the only word twirling inside Midorima’s head as he reached the place Takao worked at and found the man outside holding tightly onto his son’s hand. Not enough, though, to prevent the kid from running as soon as he said the tall doctor on the sidewalk.

“Mido-san!” he exclaimed, latching onto Shintarou’s leg before the other could even just think about doing something.

Little Shin was wearing a beige jacket and had a red scarf wrapped around his throat, but it was so big it covered him up to his ears, hiding his mouth.

“He had a cough the whole night.” Takao explained reaching them with a march. The bags under his eyes were proof enough of his words. “This morning he was fine, though. I checked and he doesn’t have a fever, luckily.”

Midorima nodded, holding Shin’s hand as Kazunari adjusted the scarf so that he could at least breathe.

The black-haired man got up, took a deep breath and shot his ex and apprehensive expression.

“Will you be okay?” he asked, clearly dubious.

Midorima arched a brow.

“Takao,” he said, with his scolding voice detaching a bit the first syllable from the others, “don’t be stupid. We’ll do just fine.”

“Yes!” Shin intervened, bouncing happily, “We’ll do great even without dad, won’t we, Mido-san?”

An end of the scarf fell from the kid’s shoulder and Midorima bent down to fix it back in its place. When he got up, he realized he had involuntarily preceded Takao in the same gesture and found him staring as if without focusing on anything for real. After a moment, the brunette shook his head.

“Okay, just be careful.”

“Don’t joke, Takao.” Shintarou scolded turning his back on him.

Kazunari stared at him leaving hand in hand with his son and only when they were too far to hear him, he allowed himself a shaky laughter, mixed with a chocking sob.

“Seriously…” he murmured, “Such a tsundere.”

 

 

Midorima discovered that dealing with Little Takao was just the same as dealing with two High School Kazunari, proportionally. He was exhausted by the tame he managed to make the kid fall asleep – in his bed because Shin had never seen one, both him and his father had futons, and he didn’t have the heart not to let him try it –.

He closed slowly the door of his bedroom and moved to the living room, where he let himself fall on the armchair with a desperate sigh.

He wasn’t sure he could make it if that were to become his routine, but now that he had spent an whole day with the ever energetic Takao-chan the mere thought of leaving him again with his father’s irresponsible colleague… Midorima felt the strange need to drive him over with his car, just to let him see what had almost happened.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he hurried up in checking the text.

_From: Kuroko Tetsuya._  
_Text: How’s it going?_

Midorima answered a simple “Asleep.” but then tiredness got the best of him and he added “Thank you.”

When he had realized he didn’t have the experience to take care of a kid, Shintarou had discovered the perks of a kindergarten teacher friend: Shin had passed that age since a while, but Kuroko knew more than Midorima anyway and had been a precious help in discovering what to do to keep the kid busy as he prepared dinner, what to cook, how to make him eat, to convince him to brush his teeth and go to bed.

His phone buzzed vibrated again, but twice.

First message was from Kuroko: You’re welcome. The second from Kise: Congratulations for surviving your first paternity day, Midorimacchi!

He didn’t answered anything to the first, but he made sure to send the second a simple and clear ‘Go die’, then he threw the phone on the table and his head backward against the couch backrest.

He only needed two minutes, for real… Just two…

 

 

The demanding vibrations of his phone made him jerk, pulling him away from sleep. Then the thought – truthfully crazy but that the fog in his mind made seem believable – of that sound waking up Shin made Midorima sprint for the mobile, with such strength he fell from the couch and ended up on his knees on the floor, just to pick the thing to his hear.

“Kise, you dumb imbecile!” he hissed, voice kept low, “Are you trying to wake up the kid?!”

“…Shintarou, I need to know, why did you think I was Kise?”

Midorima groaned.

He was on all four on the floor, hidden behind the couch with his head popping out from above this to check on his bedroom door. Not to mention, the ex he was still in love with and whose son he was babysitting just called him and he had answered with another man’s name. Perfect.

“Takao,” he growled, a bit sarcastic, “you dumb imbecile, are you trying to wake up the kid?!” Maybe he could get up, now. “Better now?”

Kazunari laughed lowly.

“I’m outside your door.” he said, putting the other matter aside, “Can you send Shin down?”

And Midorima didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to wake up the kid and let him go down on his own, not to mention they were at the top floor and that meant thirteen stairs with no elevator – he had softened up when they went there and carried Shin in his arms –, but he couldn’t exactly kidnap him and leave Takao outside…

“Come here.” he chose in the end.

What bad could it do, after all? It was just a visit.

Shintarou waited on the door for an out-of-shape Takao to reach him with a laboured breath, then he arched a brow.

“Water?” he asked.

Kazunari didn’t answer but nodded vigorously and Shintarou guided him to the counter that divided the kitchen from the living room and gestured him to sit on one of the stood as he filled him a glass.

“Reverting the roles, Shintarou?” Takao joked before emptying the glass in big mouthfuls.

Shintarou didn’t comment, but pointed at him the room Shin was in, so that he could make sure the kid hadn’t been covered in lucky items or whatever else, and took advantage of the time to lit a flame under the pot of soup he and the brat had for dinner.

“There’s only this, so don’t complain.” he muttered to the other when the man reached the counter again, ignoring the fact that Takao hadn’t said anything.

“Shintarou, I have to go, really.” the man tried to stop him, but the doctor froze him with a glare from behind his lenses and shut him up.

Turning toward the warming soup, Midorima found himself desperate for anything to break the silence.

“At least now that there’s the kid, you cannot call me with that name anymore.” The silence was better.

Takao burst out laughing, maybe a bit too loud for Shintarou threw himself on the counter to grab his nape with a hand and cover his mouth with the other.

“Are you really that stupid?!” he hissed, barely an inch from his face, “I swear, if you wake him up, I’ll kill you.”

Takao widened his eyes for a moment, then his face softened and his eyes looked at the other man with gratitude.

Midorima blushed to the tip of his ears.

It wasn’t his fault the kid was easy to get attached to. Not that he was attached, obviously. That was just a matter of fact. He didn’t care, he just promised him to teach him how to throw his three-pointers because he needed some exercise and the kid had been enthusiast after watching some videos of him and Kazunari playing matches in High School. Sure, he had let out something on the lines of “Mido-san looks like a carrot” but he had apologized with a kiss on the cheek. Not that had fallen for such a lowly trick!

“Mphintaphou…”

Midorima went back to present and realized he still had his hands on Takao, now staring at him a bit annoyed. The doctor tried to let go, but the brunette made the mistake of licking his lips too early, brushing his tongue against the other’s fingers and efficiently paralyzing Shintarou as a scorching hot shiver ran up his arm and through his brain, melting it before falling downwards.

The two of them exchanged a surprised look, for the gesture and the reaction it brought up in the both of them, then Takao tried to pull back muttering some excuse under his breath. He had to stop when Midorima’s hand on his nape held firm its grip, preventing him from leaving.

Kazunari found himself frozen still, on a stool in front of a counter and slightly bent forward, his face barely a breath from Midorima’s Bordeaux but serious one, the doctor basically lying on the counter.

“S-Shintarou?” he asked, hesitating.

Midorima wasn’t sure what to answer, but the memory of the kid behind the door two meters from them sobered him up a bit. Just a bit.

“Darn it.” he cursed between his teeth as he let go of the other man to turn, blow off the fires under the pot and the circling the counter to reach Takao, who was now on his feet and with a confused expression.

Midorima grabbed his face and kissed him, effectively shutting his mouth before he could make any question.

Eight years of nightmares, of mental wars, of hours spent staring at the phone screen only to run under a cold shower swearing that he had no right to step into the live the other man was building for himself; of Kuroko reading on his face all the hurt he was going through, of Kise pretending to be more annoying that how he really was just to distract him, of calls from Akashi and Momoi and Otsubo and Miyaji and Kimura and even Murasakibara, god, even intercontinental calls from Aomine and Kagami; of red-lights dreams on the hawk-eyed man, of painful awakenings and of unsatisfying masturbations. Those whole eight hours ran through his brain a confused vortex before vanishing completely, as if they never happened in the first place, or as if that kiss had lifted a lid and built an opening that allowed all that pain, like dirty water, to be washed away, saving Shintarou from drowning in it.

“Sh-…” Takao tried to say as soon as Midorima left his mouth but stopped himself to bit his lip and not scream when the other bent and scoped him up bridal-style to carry him to the door on the opposite side of the living room from Shin’s.

Luckily it was open and Shintarou only needed a push with his knee to get in and lay Takao on the futon in the middle of the guest room, then he turned and made sure to lock the door. They definitely didn’t need the kid to wake up, he was too young for certain things.

When he turned, Kazunari was staring at him from sitting on the futon, lying backward on his palms and with his knees bent upward and well open. Finally, Midorima found in his eyes some reborn spark of the slightly annoying provocation, the usual malice, Takao once had always with himself.

“I don’t do one-night stands, though.” the brunette jokingly warned as Shintarou knelt in between his legs.

“Takao, shut up.” Midorima growled before meeting his mouth again and dragging him downward, laying on the futon.

“Will do~!”

 

 

Takao tasted like peppermint, just as Midorima remembered. His lips, his earlobes, his neck, chest and stomach. His semen tasted salty, instead.

“M-M-M-…” Takao bit his own fist to hold back his voice and Shintarou felt proud.

Since the kid was Shin-chan now, Takao had no idea on how to call his lover and all he could do was moan shamefully every time he opened his mouth. From the doctor’s prospective, or better from well buried in between the other’s thighs, the sight was definitely charming.

When Midorima’s tongue slipped up his abs and pectorals, Kazunari thought he could die there and then. When he was turned gently on his stomach and a arm wrapped around his waist to help him on all four, the brunette realized he would definitely not survive the night.

“I-If you kill me,” he panted, trying and failing to ignore the mouth of his lover running on a spot in between his left clavicle and his neck, “you’d bet-ah!-ter… oh!... take care o-of… Shin-chan… ah!”

Midorima laughed a bit, pulling back to run a hand through Takao’s hair and pulling them out of his ear, so that he could gently kiss his earlobe.

“I’m a disastrous father, I’ll warn you.”

“We all are, at the beginning.” Kazunari muttered bending his arms a bit and lowering his shoulders to arch his spine a bit, “And you did well tonight.”

Midorima huffed, pulling back to pour a generous amount of lubes on his left hand. His fingers were rougher than in High School now and for a moment he blushed, because Takao had loved how soft they were, but forced himself to ignore the memory.

“You can say Kuroko did well.” he admitted begrudgingly as he focused on working on Takao’s entrance.

And even if Kazunari wanted to say something more, he couldn’t.

 

 

Takao sighed heavily.

Luckily Midorima had been careful and he wouldn’t have to limp around for the whole day. It would have been difficult to explain that to Shin. 

Shintarou tightened a bit his arm grip on his lover’s waist and used the other to hold his head as he lifted himself a bit and bent on the other to check on him.

“Takao?” he asked, a bit worried but ready to die not to show that.

Kazunari sighed again.

“‘Shin-chan’ suited you so well…” he complained.

Midorima rolled his eyes.

“It didn’t.” he grunted, “And I refuse to let you call me as your son in certain circumstances.”

“I refuse to call you like my son in certain circumstances!” Takao immediately punched him in the chest, yet keeping his voice low since the clock still said eight in a Sunday morning.

Shintarou nodded, serious, and Takao stared at him.

“Shin calls you Mido-san, doesn’t he?” he asked, his face opening into an evil grin.

Midorima thought safer not to answer and lower himself to pretend to be sleeping, but the other turned in his hug and shot him a satisfied grin.

“Mido-chan!” he chose, “What do you think about it, Mido-chan?”

“I think that as soon as I’ll have rested, I’ll kill you, Takao.” he declared, eyes closed not to see the other bending on him, “I could always use Kuroko as a baby-sitter and Shin-chan and I get along really well.”

“Ah, Midorimacchi, so mean!”

Midorima’s skin crawled as he heard that far-too-good imitation of Kise.

“Don’t do that.” he admonished, but Kazunari laughed, without understanding. “Takao, I’m serious, don’t. Kise has the bad habit to appear when he’s evoked.”

The brunette stopped laughing only to shot him a sceptic look, ruined by the bent of his lips as he tried to hold back a smile.

“…Mido-san?”

Both the men turned to the door hearing Shin’s voice. Takao tried to get up, but Midorima stopped him putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll go. You get dressed and fix your hair.”

The look the brunette shot him had Midorima blushing to his ears, but the man stubbornly got up and dressed ignoring it.

“You don’t have to do that.” Kazunari tried to say anyway, “I know it’s because of him that we…”

“You try to blame the kid and I’ll make sure you eat your own entrails.” Shintarou didn’t know what took over him, the threat just slipped out of his lips immediately as soon as he realized where the discussion was going.

Takao looked surprised for a moment, but then he smiled, so happy and touched and moved, and Midorima was forced to leave the room not to jump on him.

As soon as he closed the door behind him, the one of his room opened and little Shin appeared running a fist over a eye and holding with the other arm to his chest the big plush penguin Midorima and him had found the past evening as they looked for high school matches videos. The stuffed animal was just as big as the kid and Shintarou let himself smile at the sight.

“I’m here, Shin.” he reassured, “What happened?”

The kid looked around, confused, but then lifted on the man a pair of emerald teary eyes.

“Dad… didn’t come to get me?” he asked, his voice trembling slightly, “He…he left?”

Shintarou widened his eyes at the conclusion, but the he remembered what the mother had done and hurried up in scooping the kid – and the penguin – in his arms.

“That’s not the case at all!” he assured, “Dad came in late, so I told him to sleep here. Did I do right?”

Shin nodded so fast the penguin fell and Midorima had to catch him mid air with a hand.

As he returned to toy to the kid, Takao appeared from the other room. His hair still weren’t the best, but at least he had nothing else out of place. Midorima had been careful not to leave marks that Shin could have asked explanations for. Dealing with a kid asked for constant wariness.

“Dad!” said kid exclaimed as soon as he saw his father and he went shortly from crushing an ear to the doctor, who hurried up in letting him down before he jumped off his arms to reach the parent.

Shintarou stood and stared as the child ran to his lover and circled his neck with his chubby little arms, as the other had knelt, to kiss him on a cheek.

When the kid started talking about the previous night, he chose to flee to the kitchen. He wondered how Takao would react in knowing the passion his son had showed for a photo of him pulling the rickshaw with Midorima in the cart. Shin had laughed for a good quarter of hour at his father’s annoyed and exhausted expression in the picture.

He chose to take care of breakfast, sure that Kazunari would be starving and Shin nothing less.

He had barely opened the fridge when his doorbell rang.

He frowned, confused from the sudden visit, and went to the door wondering who could be on the other side. He looked through the peephole…and turned immediately, leaning against the door with his back and grabbing its frames as if scared the visitor could tear it down by force.

It couldn’t be! Not there, not at that time and not on a Sunday morning! What about his stupid beauty sleep?!

Then he remembered Takao’s unhappy words and he realized that, yes, since he had been evoked, it was more than possible for Kise Ryouta to be outside his door with two big white plastic bags in his hands.

“Midorimacchi, don’t be mean!” the model’s voice called in the very right moment the surprised eyes of father and son laid on the doctor, “There’s Kurokocchi too! We’re bringing happiness, joy and breakfast!”

Takao burst out laughing, unable to stop, when Midorima shot him a killing glare, but the man ignored him to straightened up, try to cool down, fixing the glasses on his nose and then finally open the door, standing behind it so that the first thing Kuroko and Kise were to see would be his other hosts – the welcome ones – and would hold back from embarrassing him.  
There was a moment of suspicious silence and Shintarou frowned. He was going to take a peek to make sure Kise did finally die of heart attack, but the model preceded him by running inside and jumping on the brunette shouting “Takaoicchi!”.

The worst thing, for Midorima, was that Kazunari appeared happy to meet the other again and thus the doctor sighed, exhausted, closing the door.

“This is a surprise, Midorima-kun.”

Midorima gulped together a mouthful of air and the scream that had been climbing his throat when Kuroko’s voice reached him from his left. He turned and laid his gaze on the little and unnoticed figure beside him, but couldn’t complain because Tetsuya laid on him a – for once – eloquent look and the phantom of a smile.

“I can rest assured you took good care of Takao-kun, and not only Shin-chan?” he asked and Kazunari and Kise – already sitting at the counter, the first carrying his son and the second pulling out things after things from his bags much to Shin’s amusement – laughed at those words, clearly implying two different kinds of cares.

“Shut up, Kuroko.” Shintarou growled, reaching the counter together with the phantom.

His red ears told a tale of their own.


End file.
